Why this soundcard allow me to play 2 mp3 at the same time while this doesn’t.. Hum good question. In fact to support this kind of stuff the sound card should support have some sub-device, to be sure .. simply aplay -l
Here on my shuttle .. not working
aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 0: ATI IXP AC97 [ATI IXP AC97] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: IXP [ATI IXP], device 1: ATI IXP IEC958 [ATI IXP IEC958 (AC97)] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Here on another box (VIA C3 based)
aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 0: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235] Subdevices: 4/4 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 Subdevice #1: subdevice #1 Subdevice #2: subdevice #2 Subdevice #3: subdevice #3 card 0: V8235 [VIA 8235], device 1: VIA 8235 [VIA 8235] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
So yes the C3 can play 4 stream at the same time, while the AC97 doesn’t.
Another way to do this is to use software mixing
Update:
To use the software mix in Alsa: simply change the pcm.default to pcm.dmix
#pcm.default cards.pcm.default pcm.default pcm.dmix
I miss to say the name of alsa conf file: /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf